Africa is changing rapidly, with increased investment and growth. The world's poorest continent is showing it has more to offer than famine, disease and war. "This is the time for Africa," Tegegnework Gettu, head of the United Nations Development Programme's Africa Bureau, told a conference in August.

So how exactly has Africa changed? Are the current models for development still viable? Will existing institutions remain fit for purpose given the rapid growth of African economies? And what alterations will there be in the ways the west sees Africa and Africa sees itself?

These questions sparked off a lively and wide-ranging debate at a roundtable event held recently at the Guardian, in association with DAI, a private-sector development organisation. The roundtable was attended by leading development professionals.

The discussion began with Julian Lob-Levyt from DAI setting out what he saw as some of the issues facing Africa at present: the increasing involvement of outside investors, particularly the Chinese; the increasing financial power of some African governments due to increased revenues from natural resources, such as oil in Nigeria; and the fast pace of economic growth. What is more, there is no guarntee this growth "is going to be socially or economically just", he said.

There was agreement from many participants that while there was undoubtedly growth across the continent, its spread was very uneven. Richard Dowden pointed to the huge growth rates in some countries and the financial bail-out offered to Portugal by Angola (its former colony). However, "it's only happening in a bubble. For those outside the air-conditioned bubble there's great poverty, with very little trickle down yet." Dowden added that investment in business offers the best way forward. "The investment going into Africa dwarfs aid," he said.

Natural resources

More African countries are now moving towards middle-income status, the roundtable heard. Signs of this transformation include: the rapid uptake of mobile phones and use of social media; a growing number of more educated young people who need jobs; and an emerging middle class.

According to Stefan Dercon: "It's a growth process fuelled by natural resources. But most people are still dependent on agriculture. [The numbers of] waged and salaried workers are not increasing at the moment."

While, according to the International Monetary Fund, seven of the world's 10 fastest-growing economies were expected to be in Africa over the next five years, Dipo Salimonu stressed that they were starting from a very low base. "Most of this is commodities-led, rather than through job creation," he said. "Only one per cent of global manufacturing activity comes from the continent."

Industries that involve extracting raw materials from the ground, such as oil, gas and metals, are considered by many, including Eddie Rich, to be of great importance to Africa's future financial health. Transparency and accountability must be considered, however. "The conversation that needs to go on is where is all the money going? How much is coming in; how much should be; is it a good deal; and where is it being spent? That conversation has to happen and it will look different in every country."

Investment, as distinct from aid, is increasingly coming into the continent, but it has not come from the west, the roundtable heard. And whereas aid, often from old colonial powers, may come with conditions attached – for instance, around human rights – investment rarely does so. China has no colonial history with Africa, it saw opportunities for investment in the continent's natural resources and wanted to make deals. In July, for instance, China announced $20bn (£12.4bn) of loans to African nations.

This deal-making was not just taking place at government level, said Miriam Quansah who pointed out that ordinary entrepreneurs are now regularly taking trips to China. "It's simply a business deal," she said.

Western countries, on the other hand, were still looking at Africa through the perspective of development and missed this opportunity to invest. The west's lack of deal-making in African may be changing, however. Dercon is optimistic about the potential for interactions in Africa between the UK Department for International Development and Chinese investors.

An issue that came up frequently in the debate was the changing role of aid. As Lob-Levyt pointed out in his opening remarks: "Development is a huge industry now, with huge amounts of money and vested interests involved."

So what is, and what should be, the role of development aid?

The idea was expressed at the roundtable that the ideological nature of aid often hinders progress. Beverley Jones recounted that when she was working in the recently independent South Sudan, ideological demands from donors, for instance on gender equality, took up a lot of time that could have been better spent on state building. Countries "need to work out their own way of evolving, they don't need lots of training coming in from outside," she said.

Dercon reflected that donors were working in a changing context – whether it was bilateral aid from government to government, or more generally – and that contexts varied greatly among countries. But development funding was still essential and would be for years to come.

There was much discomfort among the participants about some large NGOs investing in businesses and acting like development agencies. "The strapline of aid organisations should be 'working for our own abolition'," said Dowden. "In fact, it's the opposite."

The role of the media – for good and for ill – was also a significant point for discussion at the roundtable.

The continent of Africa contains countries that are profoundly different from each other – socially, economically, geographically and historically – yet it is often seen as one entity. The role of the media in spreading more complex views about Africa, both within Africa and throughout the rest of the world, is crucial. Quansah said that, as journalists, she and her colleagues "are trying to offer different nuances to the continent" but, in the face of complex issues, differing audience demands and often victimising imagery, "this is a struggle".

Several participants commented on the way some NGOs still used photographs of "starving babies" to raise money – a tactic that encourages the west to see Africans as powerless victims, but some thought it was legitimate if it encouraged people to give money.

Other modern advertising tactics used by some NGOs in their fundraising, similar to the marketing techniques used by large mulitnationals, were questioned by Charlie Beckett, who considered that much of the British public was, rightly, increasingly hostile to – and sceptical about – these tactics. She said: "You are packaging your calls for marketing in the same terms as Starbucks or Levi's and you expect me to treat you as something morally superior?"

What of politics, in government and more informally? According to Ann Pettifor, there are many issues involving the effective building of institutions. "In Sierra Leone, there is no law relating to land [ownership]. In northern Nigeria, people have no connection with the state. Then there is land-grabbing as a result of commodity prices. They lack the institutional ways to react."

For Pettifor: "The key issue for Africa is that it lacks policy autonomy. Should a country want to do things in its own way, that's hard to do. Global forces are pushing it in a million directions. This is partly legacy: we do patronise Africa as a continent that has to be rescued."

Tim Aldred highlighted the challenges for civil society in a period when more African countries are moving to middle-income status. When this happened in Latin America, there was " … lots of aid flight, and civil society was slow to adapt. There was a sense from Latin American partners that they were taken by surprise, so this needs planning and strategic thinking now."

Whether the drivers for change in African society are political or economic, or a mixture of the two, the transformation has begun. Development experts and investors are eager to see what happens next.

At the table

Jo Confino (Chair), Executive editor, the Guardian

Julian Lob-Levyt, Senior vice president, International, DAI

Charlie Beckett, Director of Polis, London School of Economics

Stefan Dercon, Chief economist, Department for International Development

Miriam Quansah, Social media creative, BBC World Service

Eddie Rich, Dep head and director for Middle East, southern and eastern Africa, EITI International Secretariat

Richard Dowden, Director, Royal African Society SOAS; and journalist

Ann Pettifor, Director of policy research in macroeconomics and a fellow of the New Economics Foundation